DEPUTY Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi today urged 400 private tahfiz schools to register with their state Islamic religious departments to ensure safety and safeguard the interests of the students.

He said the Malaysian Fire and Rescue Department’s statistics showed there were almost 1,000 tahfiz schools in the country, but only 612 were registered.

Zahid, who is also home minister, said the unregistered schools were believed to have hesitated for fear they probably could not meet the conditions for registration.

“The Islamic departments have their own standards that should be met, such as fire safety features and adequate number of teachers. However, these schools still have to register for the safety of the students,” he said after presenting 1,836 fire extinguishers to registered tahfiz institutions at the Perdana Putra Building in Putrajaya. 

Zahid who had earlier chaired the Tahfiz School Task Force Meeting said the taskforce had agreed to supply closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to tahfiz schools which were registered through the Taqwa Foundation, a social welfare organisation, and the Implementation Coordination Unit (ICU) in stages.

He said this would be further scrutinised as the installation of the CCTV cameras would be quite costly.

Zahid said the meeting also issued an instruction for all fire extinguishers presented to be properly maintained and the taskforce would ensure all tahfiz schools would organise fire drills at least once a year under the Fire Department’s supervision. – Bernama, February 15, 2018.